Energy Matters  is a weekly publication of the American Energy Society.  Here are some bits of energy news covering the past month . The new director of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory ( NREL ) in Golden, Colorado from 1October2025 will be Jud Virden. Has a doctorate in chemical engineering from the University of Washington.  Is known for his strong record in forging public-private partnerships and advancing grid resilience and energy technologies. Lots of luck with  President Donald Trump , who yesterday, in a one hour speech to the UN General Assembly, called climate change and green technology the greatest con job ever perpetuated...and a scam.  Further:   All of these predictions made by the United Nations and many others, often for bad reasons, were wrong.  They were made by stupid people . Plus: “They said global warming will kill the world, but then it started getting cooler. So now they could just call it climate change, because t...

Viktor Orban, Hungary's prime minister, yesterday met Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago.  Trump praised Orban as a great dictator, or something like that.    Orban said Trump indicated he won't give a penny to Ukraine .   Orban is not scheduled to meet with anyone in the Biden administration.  They are both poised to join the president's for life club, now led by Vladimir Putin, Jinping Xi and Kim Jong Un.  Actually, Viktor already is at their level. On 5August2019, a year before the previous U.S. presidential election, it was scarily reported on  how Trump might be scrutinizing Orban's playbook . Trump borrowed his immigration policy from Orban, who fanned anti-migrant sentiment to gain political power in 2010 to dismantle Hungarian democracy. Immigration is just a Trump's first step to establish an autocracy. Orban built a fence on the border with Serbia in 2015.  Donald has his wall. Orban used bogus corruption charges to sideline political oppon...

News of the day. No break in the search for Robert Card in Maine.   Follow live updates here. Looks like  Israel  has increased war-like activity in the Gaza Strip.   Time  magazine can only discuss four bad options. Earlier this week Jimmy Kimmel indicated that  Donald Trump will go to jail .  Clearly, Kimmel also doesn't like new Speaker Mike Johnson.   Watch him say the followin g: Johnson, he noted, backed   Donald Trump ’s plot to overturn the 2020 election results and remain in power despite losing. “Also anti-gay, anti-choice, pro-conspiracy theory, he seems terrific,” Kimmel snarked. “Not only is he not the best choice for speaker, you can’t even definitively say Mike Johnson is the best Mike Johnson they could’ve chosen.”   Kimmel then ticked off a list of better Mike Johnsons, from chefs to athletes to yodelers. “You could go to the middle of the phone book and pick any of the hundreds of Mike Johnsons. Each one ...